Bear and the Wolf

by S. J. A. Turney

  THE BEAR AND THE WOLF

  Being a short tale of Roman and Briton and of the

  trouble with dour emperors and their men;

  By

  Ruth Downie

  &

  S. J. A. Turney

  Published in this format 2017

  Copyright - S.J.A.Turney & R. S. Downie

  First Edition

  The author asserts the moral right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 to be identified as the author of this work.

  All Rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted, in any form or by any means without the prior consent of the author, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

  All internal maps are copyright the author of this work.

  Map of Northern Britannia 210 AD

  Dramatis Personae:

  SENNA, a woman of the Maeatae, beleaguered by family and her time.

  BRIGIUS of the Votadini, serving with the Second Nerviorum. Her man.

  ATTO, excitable and enthusiastic child of the above.

  VARIOUS NEIGHBOURS of Senna’s at Vindolanda’s civilian settlement.

  THEA, Senna’s African landlady whose brother runs a stable.

  MOGONTIUS, Senna’s lame father. There’s no fool like an old fool.

  TOTIA, Senna’s worried cousin in Maeatae tribal lands.

  DUBNUS, Totia’s rash and rather dull husband. A troublemaker to the Romans.

  CARACALLA. Son of the emperor, a prince of Rome, and not a nice one.

  VITALIS, the prefect of the newly-arrived Numidian Cavalry of the emperor.

  STRABO, a soldier of the Second Nerviorum, lucky at dice. Potentially a cheat.

  BUTEO & SCAPULA: two Centurions in the Second Nerviorum.

  PART ONE: PAX ROMANA

  By Ruth Downie

  Vindolanda military base, AD 210

  CHAPTER 1

  “Senna?”

  The door opened before she could reach it, and her frantic “Sh!” made no difference: the woman was too worried to listen.

  “Senna, quick, they’re fighting! Somebody’s got to do something! ”

  “Who’s fighting?” Senna glanced back at her sleeping child before throwing a shawl around her shoulders and stepping out into the wet stable yard. “Where’s Brigius?”

  “You must go! They’re all in there! In the Painted Man.”

  A bar fight. Thank the gods: for a moment she had feared a raid.

  “Brigius is in there!” Senna’s landlady was almost dancing with frustration. “Quick!”

  Senna could hear shouting and dogs barking now, even from three streets away. “Will you watch the boy for me?”

  Thea slipped past her into the rented room. “Go. I’ll lock the door behind you. Be careful!”

  Senna heard the rattle of the key as she ran across the yard, the rain cold on her bare head and her feet splashing through the puddles. At the corner of the street she crashed into a neighbour and had to duck, crying out, “It’s me!” before he dropped his fist, threw her aside and raced off in the direction of the fort.

  Just past the shoemaker’s she saw a friend hurrying her children home through the rain, and asked, “What is happening at the bar?”

  “Don’t go over there!”

  “Is Brigius there?”

  The friend said, “I don’t know,” adding over her shoulder as they passed, “Senna, leave the centurions to sort it out!”

  She had already been overtaken twice by groups of men running towards the bar before she turned the corner to witness the uproar. Men yelling in a jumble of languages, women screaming, and excited dogs racing up and down the street, barking and leaping over the door shutters that lay smashed on the paving.

  From somewhere close she heard her name. Two of the serving-girls from the bar were huddled in a doorway.

  She said, “What’s happening?”

  “Our boys and the Numidians.”

  Over in the bar, Senna could make out only a murky chaos of figures colliding with each other and the furniture and falling over, and other shapes writhing and rolling about on the floor. Someone was vainly yelling “Stop it!” and a woman shrieked over the cacophony, “Don’t hurt him!”

  “Is my man in there?”

  “He was. Somebody’s gone for help.”

  There was a splintering crash as another table went over. The woman screamed again, “Don’t—!” Her voice died in mid-shriek and Senna felt a jolt of fear. What had they done to her? Where was Brigius? She flinched at a touch on her arm, but it was only one of the serving-girls: the Syrian one with the dangly earrings. “It’ll be all right,” the girl promised. “The officers will be here any moment.”

  Senna peered both ways down the street, but there were no centurions: only the rain and the barking dogs and, she saw now, other spectators sheltering under the dripping eaves. The Numidian who had just fallen was back on his feet. He wrenched a leg from the broken table and swung it above the figures on the floor. As it came down Senna was across there, leaping onto his back and shouting, “Leave them alone!”

  He flung her off as easily as if she were a child. She landed on one of the broken shutters with a crash. Hands were pulling at her. By the time the girls had dragged her back to the safety of the doorway her ears were filled with the shrill of centurions’ whistles and the barking of bigger dogs, and the roar of “Order!”

  The man still waving the table-leg was felled by the crack of a centurion’s stick against his ribs.

  “Order! Back against the wall! Now!”

  The struggling mass of bodies on the floor began to disentangle itself, still with some last-minute pushing and shoving. A slave appeared from somewhere and began to stamp on the flames that were licking along a spill of lamp oil. A woman clasping torn clothes around her was bent over a figure that lay groaning on the floor, and Senna recognised the burly shape of the landlord of the Painted Man.

  The two centurions stepped forward into the building. Their dogs were growling and straining at their leashes, eager for the command to attack. The street mongrels had fled.

  Rubbing her bruised shoulder, Senna peered at the figures lined up against the walls. Thank the gods, there was Brigius, standing to attention, breathing heavily and with blood dripping down his chin. Around him she recognised more of his comrades from the Second Nervians.

  “Men of the Second!” roared the senior of the two centurions, “In the street! Form up!”

  Half of the men in the bar began to shuffle towards the open space where the shutters had been. Several were limping, and one was being half-carried by his comrades.

  Senna was relieved to see the woman helping the landlord up from the floor. No serious harm done, then. The medics would treat the injured and the centurions would dole out punishments. Brigius and his friends would grumble about them, and everything would go back to normal.

  The dark Numidians had stayed where they were. One was clutching his head; another his belly. Others were leaning against the walls with their arms folded as if they were watching a show. The slave went back to stamping out the flames. One Numidian stretched out his foot to help. The rest stayed where they were.

  A centurion gave the nearest man from the Second a smack with his stick, and the rest hurried up.

  Senna had not noticed the tall, bronze-skinned figure in a flowing cloak approaching down the street, nor his two followers, but the moment the Numidians caught sight of their officer, they straightened up. The slave scuttled behind the counter, and the centurions from the Second stopped to acknowledge the officer’s arrival.


  “What’s going on here?”

  “The men were fighting, sir,” the senior centurion told him. “It’s all over now.”

  The Numidian officer surveyed the men of the Second, who were forming a ragged line in the street, and his own battered cavalrymen standing to attention around the wreckage of furniture and the remains of smashed crockery. Turning away from the scene, he remarked, “You should keep your men under better control, centurion.”

  The centurion said, “Yes, sir,” because he was not a fool. The fool was the man out in the street who said, “So should you.”

  The officer spun round. Then, to the centurion. “Have that man sent to me.”

  Silence.

  “Centurion?”

  “He’ll be dealt with, sir.”

  From the shelter of the bar, the officer eyed the row of grimfaced infantrymen standing out in the rain. The only sound was water dripping from the eaves and the growling of disappointed dogs. Senna realised she was holding her breath.

  Finally the officer glanced at the centurions and their men. “When our prince gets here,” he said, “You people will have to shape up.”

  Nobody answered. For a moment it seemed he had forgotten about the man who had spoken out of turn. But then came, “I want that man brought to me by the end of third watch.”

  And what else could the centurion say, in front of everyone, except, “Yes sir.”?

  CHAPTER 2

  Given a choice, Senna would have brought the boy to visit the family farm by herself. But Brigius had stood firm. Everyone knew that travelling north of the Great Wall was more dangerous these days.

  She had to agree. It wasn’t the thieves and the cattle-raiders that were the problem: they were of the Maeatae, like herself. They wouldn’t trouble an ordinary woman and child, both long-limbed and pale-skinned like themselves, who spoke the native tongue with a local accent. The danger—and if you thought about this, it was almost funny—the danger was more likely to come from jumpy Roman patrols sent out to try and stop them. If they couldn’t arrest the right people they might just snatch up the nearest. And with soldiers yelling at you, it was hard not to look guilty of something.

  Brigius’ insistence on coming with them had meant a delay, though. After the trouble at the bar all the men had been confined to quarters and several were confined to hospital beds. No-one who had been involved was allowed leave, no matter how much cash he offered the centurions. So the Second had sulked in their barracks for ten days, further aggrieved by the knowledge that the comrade who had dared to speak up had been flogged by men of another unit, and their own officers seemed unable or unwilling to do anything about it. Meanwhile the prince’s favourite cavalry either rode the surrounding hills or stayed in their tightly-packed rows of round houses, and their officers were only ever seen entering and leaving the Commanding Officer’s residence. All of which meant that on top of losing three teeth, his dignity and his furniture, the landlord of the Painted Man, who was a veteran of the Second and generally well-liked, also lost most of his income.

  As Senna’s landlady pointed out, the only people who did well out of the whole sorry business were the children living around the fort. They did a fine trade in running messages and fetching shopping. Everyone else prayed that now the weather was better, the cavalry would soon be riding out and not coming back.

  That happy day had not yet dawned by the time Senna and Brigius and the boy made the trip to the farm. She was glad to be here, walking young Atto through a spring scene that had barely changed since her own childhood. There were still chickens pecking around the scatter of thatched houses. There was still a mud patch that you had to try not to stand in as you refilled the water trough. This year’s lambs were dancing in the paddock and the wooden platform in the yard was waiting for the new season’s hay.

  She was glad to see most of her relatives, too. But back in the smoky atmosphere of the roundhouse, she found she was missing her mother more than ever. Not only because she wanted to hear Mam say what a wonderful grandson Atto was, but because Mam had known how to keep the peace.

  If the emperor had asked Senna’s Mam for advice, half of the Romans who had fallen in the battles with the Caledonii last year would still be alive. And so would plenty of Caledonii who had done nothing more than defend their homeland.

  Sunk in the depths of his chair with his bad leg propped up on a stool, her father didn’t look like the great Maeatae warrior he had once been. But even now, armed with nothing but words, he insisted on picking a fight with Brigius whenever they met. Since Mam had gone to the next world, visits home only ever ended one way. It was just a matter of time.

  At least tonight her father waited until the meal was over and most of the relatives had gone back to their houses and Atto had been packed off to bed with the other children. The boy was tired after the long walk: with luck he was asleep by the time her father leaned forward and addressed Brigius across the glowing logs on the hearth.

  “I hear,” he said, “that these days the emperor’s men are fighting each other.”

  Senna gave Brigius a look that said, Don’t! but he was too busy draining his beer-cup to take any notice.

  “I also hear,” her father added, “That you boys had your backsides kicked by the cavalry.”

  Senna turned to him. “Da, we’ve been travelling all day. We’ve to go back tomorrow. Can we not leave the arguing for once?”

  “I’m not arguing. I’m asking for information.”

  “I heard the same thing,” put in the latest husband of her cousin Totia, folding his arms to make his tattoos bulge and stretching his long legs towards the fire. “So, is it true?”

  Senna said, “You know he can’t talk about these things!” but Brigius put up a hand to silence her.

  He took a moment to settle his beer-cup safely in the dry bracken that covered the floor before looking up. She watched the scar on the barely-healed lip move as he asked calmly, “Have you ever seen Numidian cavalry in action?”

  The cousin’s husband, who was called Dubnus and who wasn’t as handsome as he thought himself, gave a lazy grin. “I’ve seen their horses. Someone liberated one of their very expensive stallions a while back. I’m told we’ve some fine foals this year.”

  “Ask the Caledonii,” Brigius told him. “The ones that are left after the emperor’s campaign last summer. Ask how their warriors were chased into the mountains, rounded up and slaughtered like rats in a barrel.”

  Senna wondered if the excited girls back at Vindolanda, the ones who had swooned over the handsome new arrivals’ “deep dark eyes you could drown in,” ever wondered what those eyes had seen during the emperor’s campaign in the north. Probably not. No doubt there would soon be a rash of babies with brown skin and deep dark eyes, born to mothers with more passion than sense.

  “The Caledonii,” declared Dubnus, “rely too heavily on being able to hit the target and run.”

  Brigius said, “So I hear.”

  Dubnus called himself a warrior but he had never shown any real interest in fighting when Senna had met him before. She wondered who he had been listening to.

  “And up till recently,” Dubnus went on, “they’ve got away with it.” The smile reappeared. “You infantry boys are a bit too slow.”

  Senna glanced at her father, hoping he would tell Dubnus not to insult a guest, but her father said nothing. Brigius might be family, and he might be a Briton by birth, but he wasn’t Maeatae, and even if he had been, he had sworn loyalty to the emperor.

  “Pursuit is what the Numidians do best.” Brigius’s voice was still calm, and she felt suddenly proud of him. “They’re relentless.”

  The praise made her want to giggle, because she knew what the two units really thought of each other. Over the winter, the cavalry had decided the Second were both dim-witted and soft. The Second’s view was that the cavalry were overpaid and arrogant: men who went for a scenic ride across the hills every day to annoy the locals, and then s
at by the fire while other people did the hard work, patrolling the Wall and the roads in all weathers and suffering from chilblains and boredom.

  “People say,” Brigius continued, “That the Numidians stop at nothing. That whoever has them on their side always wins in the end.”

  “Not here they wouldn’t,” Dubnus assured him. “Their horses aren’t used to the climate and their leaders don’t know the territory.”

  Senna blinked. Who had the man been talking to? And why didn’t he have the sense to keep his mouth shut?

  Brigius said, “They didn’t know the Caledonii territory either.”

  “Ah, but all they had to do up there was chase them,” Dubnus pointed out. “And anyway, they haven’t seen our warriors in action.”

  “Nobody’s seen our warriors in action!” said Senna, annoyed that this fool was not even offering her man the courtesy of taking him seriously. “Not since Rome bought us all off.”

  And now it was Brigius giving her the frown that said, Don’t! but it was too late.

  “We were not bought off!” Her father thumped the side of his chair with his walking-stick. “You should be proud of your own people, girl, instead of repeating the lies of foreigners.”

  In a moment it would be I was there when…

  “I was there when the Roman governor handed over the tribute.”

  “I know, Da.”

  “Then you should listen, because I know the truth! Rome bowed to the Maeatae. The governor paid tribute to us. Not many tribes can say that. It is something to be proud of!”

  Senna opened her mouth to say, It was a bribe to keep us quiet! and closed it again. They were only here for one night, and she was the one who had said she didn’t want an argument.